Disk imaging / backup

[Lance]

At the moment, I'm backing up files using ms synctoy which is fine because the important data is all saved.

However, I'm at the point now where I want to be able to restore to a fully working system (recovering from either major software or hardware issues) in minimal time so I'm assuming the best way of doing this is full disk imaging.

In the past I've used Acronis TI to achieve this but don't have it any more. Does anyone have any suitable suggestions what software I could use instead? I'm looking for either low cost or free!

Thanks

[Ray]

Are you using Windows 7? Lance, if you are it's already built into the OS via Backup and restore in the Action Centre.

[Lance]

Two machines are W7 (only one of which will be imaged), but the main machine to be backed up is running up to date XP.

[Ray]

This one is free and quite good, I think, Lance,

Easus ToDo Backup

[Rik]

An alternative idea, Lance, is the Clickfree v6 portable harddrive (USB3 and backwards), which will image the drives, then do incremental backups. It can restore the OS, or be used to move iTunes libraries around etc.

[MisterW]

I use clonezilla, both at home and in the office http://www.clonezilla.org/
It will backup any filesystem, either by partition or the whole drive and will do bare-metal recovery.
Oh , and its free

[Baz]

This one is free and quite good, I think, Lance,

Easus ToDo Backup

yes I have used this too but never had to restore with it yet.

its nice and easy to use

[Lance]

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll try Easus as it supports increment backups.

[zappaDPJ]

If there is an operating system involved, I would recommend testing your choice out as a worst case scenario. I've lost count of the number of backups I've seen that simply won't restore.